State of Tennessee v. Ashley Nicole Thomas

The Defendant, Ashley Nicole Thomas, was convicted by a Tipton County Circuit Court jury of one count of aggravated neglect of a child eight years of age or less; one count of aggravated child neglect; three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor; one count of facilitation of sexual exploitation of a minor; three counts of criminal responsibility for the rape of a child; and one count of continuous sexual abuse of a child in violation of the Child Protection Act. For these convictions, she received an effective forty-year sentence. On appeal, the Defendant contends that the trial court erred (1) when it allowed the State to amend the indictment on the first day of trial, thereby substantially changing the nature of the case; (2) by allowing the State to make its election of offenses for the Child Protection Act counts after the commencement of trial in violation of Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-508(d), which requires a written thirty-day notice; and (3) by failing to dismiss the indictment due to the State’s destroying pornographic videos prior to her trial in violation of State v. Ferguson, 2 S.W.3d 912 (Tenn. 1999). Because the Defendant was acquitted of one of three required predicate offenses to support the continuous sexual abuse of a child conviction, the judgment of the trial court in Count Thirteen is reversed, the conviction is vacated, and the charge is dismissed. We, likewise, remand this case for the entry of a corrected judgment in Count Five to reflect the jury’s guilty verdict. The remaining judgments of the trial court are affirmed.